Mary Rose
by SilenceoftheLlamas
Summary: Everything was going well, or so they thought. They couldn't have been more wrong about it.


**Something a little different to what else I've been writing but I've wanted to write something for Pacific Rim since I first heard about it.**

**So here we go. I finally got the balls to do it.**

**AU~**

* * *

"Get up! We're going to be late!"

I groaned and rolled over in my bed, not wanting to get up. It was so _warm_ here, couldn't I have just five more minutes?

"Keri I swear to god if you don't get up now I will _drag_ you out."

Huffing angrily, I pushed myself upwards and fixed the other occupant of the room with a glare. "Fine."

They seemed unfazed and looked pleased, handing me my clothes with a smile. "Right, now that you're up get dressed. You've missed breakfast by five minutes, but I managed to grab you something. Eat it while we walk down." They rambled, swiftly turning to make their bed before sitting on it while they waited.

My twin, Vicki, was _insistent_. We had to be there, on time, bang-on-the-dot. Five minutes early was normal for Vicki. For me it was not. So it was no surprise when we turned up just as the lecture started.

I say lecture because it _felt_ like one. Like the guy was angry with us for something we hadn't even done yet. I wasn't paying attention, so I snapped up straight when I heard my name.

"Kereis, Vicki, take the north sector. You're going on patrol down there. Go suit up, you are dismissed."

We both saluted with a 'sir' and quickly turned and marched out, switching to a run when we had left the doors. Patrol on the north was the best! It was all cliffs and nothing _ever_ happened. We could get away with almost anything up there.

Patrol with our Jager was the best.

Despite the breach being sealed by the Pilots of Gipsy Danger, the names of whom were known throughout the world – Rayleigh and Mako – there was still a need for Jagers.

For a single measly year, we thought it was over. We thought that we had done it and that it was the end of the decade of hell. The technology used was then transferred for construction to help rebuild the cities that were destroyed and for security.

Then the breach opened again.

Havoc was the only word that could describe what happened. With no Jagers to speak of to defend ourselves, it was absolute carnage. It didn't take six days to stop them this time – no, oh no. It took six _weeks_. It wasn't a single event, nor a double. Not even a triple. It was a quadruple event with four of the beasts emerging and attacking the closest cities they could.

It was a brilliant wake-up call and all of the Jagers we still had were brought up to working condition and the Jager academies searched wildly for able pilots for them.

The bodies of Cherno Alpha and Crimson Typhoon were salvaged when the breach was sealed and repaired, their pilots still miraculously alive. The Chinese trio and Russian duo all leapt at the chance to fight in their Jagers again. They fought tooth and nail to pilot them on their patrols which lead to us rookies being able to as well, for what a better way to learn how to use your Jager than to get inside of it?

I liked the Russians. Even though on first glance they looked as cold and rigid as the ice that dominated their motherland, they were surprisingly friendly and were never ever seen without the other, always sharing looks full of meaning that was lost on those who saw it.

Aleksis had a voice that sounded like the earth moving and a love for gardening. Sasha spoke about Cherno as if the Jager were their child, which in some way he was. They both insisted that I referred to Cherno as being male.

So I did.

The Chinese triplets acted as if I didn't exist and ignored my presence, like they did to everyone else. They were always together, talking rapidly in Chinese and laughing. They always had a grin plastered on their face and they had every right to – they'd stared death in the face, accepted it gracefully from the ocean floor and then been tugged back to the world of the living. Those on the base who could speak Chinese told me that they referred to their beloved Jager Crimson Typhoon with female honorifics, so I did too.

Striker Eureka's pilots, Chuck Hansen and Stacker Pentecost, didn't make it. I guess being right at the epicenter of a nuclear explosion ensured that. The Jager was also destroyed, as was Gipsy Danger. Raleigh and Mako went from shatterdome to shatterdome, trying to find a Jager they could pilot and help with the resistance but to no avail. Gipsy was their Jager, the one and only. It was heartbreaking, really.

Still, they continued searching. When they weren't testing out Jagers they were talking to people like me and Vicki, telling us about their experiences in a Jager and giving us tips on how to cope with the physical and mental strain of it. I could tell by the sadness in their eyes that they were missing piloting.

There's nothing quite like it.

Being in the suit and feeling like a superhero from a comic book – like _Iron man_. Everyone looks at you in absolute awe as you climb out after a fight or even a simple patrol. The whole 'celebrity' status it gives you.

And then there's being in someone else's mind, knowing what they're thinking, their thoughts flowing freely with your own, what their emotions are doing, what they're planning and what they can _feel_. Nothing else can allow you to feel it. Nothing.

But there's also the pain of if it goes wrong and if you're not compatible. Your mind freaks out, it fritzes. You can be knocked out for seconds or weeks. The trauma. The mental damage. The chance that you may never be able to drift again.

The risk is thrilling to me.

* * *

As predicted, the North side was as dull and empty as ever. The sea looked angrier than usual and a quick call to the base confirmed our suspicions – there was a storm headed our way. Although it was unlikely a Kaiju would be interested in coming through the waves, there was still a chance. Take Russia for example – the sea was unforgiving and torturously cold and yet some of the more bold and tough-cookie type Kaiju still went for it. So we had to remain on patrol.

As we were heading towards the end of the patrol route and about to turn back around to go along the coast again, there was a distant rumble coming from below us. I nervously shared a look with my twin and we cautiously stepped backwards and looked down between our Jagers feet.

There was a crack in the ground beneath us that lead to the cliff. The cliff was breaking.

And we were on it.

Over a hundred tonnes of metal on a crumbling soft cliff was a recipe for disaster, and we were about to learn just how true that was. We both immediately began to backpedal as quickly as we dared, not eager to end up crashing hundreds of feet down into the sea. Just as we lifted a single foot to start our slow retreat, the crack spread and expanded before there was a deep, rumbling groan and the cliff crumbled, taking us down with it.

You never really get to appreciate just how big a Jager is until you end up sitting down at the bottom of a cliff.

We were fine. Incredibly shaken and trembling slightly, but fine. I felt a dull phantom ache in my leg and I immediately turned to look at my twin. She was hurt – the pain wasn't my own. "Vicki, are you okay?!"

"Fine." She gasped, wincing. She wasn't letting me see her leg, turning slightly so it was hidden behind her. "Contact the shatterdome, we can't climb back up on our own."

I nodded, reaching up to initiate a communication. They answered as quickly as always.

"Augustus Vanlith here, how can I help you on this fine day Kereis?"

"We've fallen off the cliff." I replied, pausing for a second before quickly adding "Don't you fucking dare."

"Don't dare what, Kereis?" he replied, muffling snorts of laughter.

"Laugh. Vicki's hurt."

"What, did she get a bruise or something?" He laughed. I could _hear_ him leaning back in the chair – I could hear him _grin_. Oh that fucker was going to get it. I looked over at Vicki, knowing that she was vainly trying to hide what was wrong. Obviously, it was distressing her a little. Drifting, the handy little thing it was, told me exactly what was wrong and I swallowed down the lump that had formed in my throat. No, I could react later.

"I can't feel my left leg, so that means neither can she." We both gave an experimental wiggle to see if we could get back up to our feet, but a pained shout from my twin had us both sitting firmly back down again. "We can't get up."

He didn't reply for a moment. Good, that sobered him up. My punch would be lighter. And maybe not aimed at his face. "And how, exactly, did you manage to fall in?"

"The cliff is made of boulder clay – it's _Holderness_ for fucks sake what did you expect? This place is falling apart like crazy." I snapped back. I could feel the waves breaking over the Jagers chest and it was making me feel uneasy. We had spotted the signs of a storm earlier – it wouldn't do to be caught up in one while stuck at the bottom of a cliff. I could feel my twin shaking and the terror that was seeping through the drift. She was scared out of her mind and I knew it. I was powerless to stop it. All I could do was hope Augustus would be quick about getting us the help we needed. "Look, the storms coming in and we can't move an inch. If we get thrown around by the waves we're _goners_."

"They'll be about 70 minutes tops. Do you think you can hold out for that long?"

"I don't think I have enough blood for that." Vicki weakly joked, voice trembling.

"That bad?" he replied, suddenly sounding incredibly worried. I nodded even though he couldn't see. "Shit…" He cursed quietly.

* * *

That had to be one of the longest seventy minutes of my life. Vicki kept flittering in and out of consciousness, and it terrified me each time she didn't react to me shouting her name and shaking her. There was blood pooled around her dock in the cockpit and my feet were splashing in it. It felt _disgusting_. She tried her best to act strong but it was an effort that was lost on me. I could feel how scared she was. I could feel how tired she felt, how dizzy she was. I could see the paper-white of her face and the blueish lips that were usually cherry red.

I didn't want to look down at her thigh and see what had gone wrong. I could feel it. I didn't want to see it. It would make to too real.

How much blood did humans our size have anyway? I hoped that she had enough. I begged that she had enough.

When they finally, finally came Vicki was delirious and didn't even need to be numbed for them to start carefully detaching the machinery that had lodged itself firmly into her leg. Deciding to do the more delicate things in a more stable environment – the sea had gotten more ferocious as time went on and we were rocking slightly – they took her away and left me to try to get my Jager out.

Piloting it on my own was hard. I'd had to do it as part of my training in case anything like this ever happened, but it didn't mean I was good at it. I kept on losing focus, the strain becoming too much. I was too worried about my twin. I eventually managed to get myself back up onto the right side of the cliff but that was enough for me.

Another set of mechanical feet came into view and I blearily looked upwards to see another Jager standing in front of me, offering me a hand. I weakly took it and they helped me up to my feet. A nod in thanks.

From the looks of it, they were one of the Germans. Donner und blitzen. A pretty Jager, thinking about it.

I stumbled over where the helicopters were to pick us up, and I gladly let them attach themselves to me and lift me from the ground. I didn't want to walk. Not without my twin.

* * *

We couldn't pilot a Jager together again.

The medical team took too long. Vicki was too injured to save.

We couldn't pilot a Jager together again.

I didn't want to believe it. We could. We definitely could.

…

Couldn't we?

* * *

**I'm hoping I remembered the canon correctly, welp.**

**Just remember that this is AU~ I may or may not be totally screwed when the second one comes out, haha.**

**Sorry if the formatting is a little weird on this - please tell me if it is I wont get mad or anything I'll be incredibly grateful actually - word on my mac is a tad different to the one on windows (despite being the same edition) and I'm still getting to grips with it.**

**Updates for this, and everything I write actually, may be a little far and few between due to college. My work comes first!**

**~Llama**


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